Beyond The WordPress Comment Box

Posted by Sharon Hurley Hall on November 16th, 2009

There’s nothing wrong with the comment box in a default WordPress installation, but there’s nothing very exciting about it, either.

Upgrades to WordPress over the last couple of years have made the comment area more interesting, with gravatars and threaded comments, but these days bloggers often want even more functionality from the comments area.

More specifically, they want to be able to interact with readers through a variety of social sites. That’s why alternative comment management systems are coming into their own. Two of the best known are Disqus and IntenseDebate, with JS-Kit Echo also making a strong showing.

JS-Kit Echo

JS-Kit Echo describes itself as the  “next generation commenting system”, but there’s one major hurdle to get over before you try it - the cost. At $12 a year, it’s not expensive, but why would you pay for managing blog comments? One of the reasons is that using Echo means that your readers can use different social media accounts (Google, Friendfeed, Twitter, Haloscan, OpenID, Yahoo, Blogger) to comment on your site. Also, it works whether you blog with WordPress, Blogger, Drupal or other blogging systems.

Echo is a great way to collect reactions to your content from across the web (like Backtype Connect), and to get photo and video comments on your blog. Finally, you can pre-approve people you trust so that their comments are automatically shown. However, it would be nice to use the WordPress dashboard for comment moderation, rather than the JS-Kit site.

IntenseDebate

Intense Debate comes from Automattic so it’s no surprise that it integrates well with WordPress. Readers can use login credentials from Twitter, Facebook and more, while blog owners can manage comments in a variety of ways: through the WordPress dashboard, on the Intense Debate site, or by email. This does not always work completely smoothly (sometimes you have to approve comments twice) but generally it’s a decent system.

As you would expect it integrates well with Aksimet, reducing the amount of spam you see and readers will find it easy to tweet their comments for wider sharing on the social networks.

Disqus

Disqus is the only comment system I haven’t tried personally, but it is well thought of by users. Like the other commenting systems, it works on a variety of blogging platforms, and allows readers to comment using credentials from different sites. It connects comments from a range of social sites through links with BackType and Ubervu, enabling real time conversation. I’ve used Disqus as a blog commenter and have been impressed.

Which system should you choose? Here are some of the ways to decide:

  • Don’t want to pay? Choose Intense Debate or Disqus
  • Want to make sure comments are retained if you uninstall? Choose Intense Debate or Echo
  • Want to integrate comments from many social streams? Choose Echo or Disqus

Whichever you choose, all the comment systems will give your readers an enhanced commenting experience.

This post was submitted by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write Online.com.

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Wakoopa - App Tracking Gets Social

Posted by Sharon Hurley Hall on November 8th, 2009

When I first heard about Wakoopa I wondered what the point was, but having actually used it, I find it strangely addictive. Wakoopa describes itself as “a social network that helps people discover the best software, games and web apps on the market.” In an increasingly open online environment, it had to be worth a look.

Tracking Your Apps

To use Wakoopa you have to install a small tracker application on your PC or Mac. After […] Continue Reading…

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Brizzly - A Better Twitter?

Posted by Sharon Hurley Hall on October 29th, 2009

I love Twitter, but sometimes feel I need a few more features than it offers. Brizzly fills the gap by providing an enhanced Twitter experience in your browser, and it’s got one other useful trick - the ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts. I put it to the test.

Adding Accounts To Brizzly

I started by adding the three Twitter accounts I manage. To do this, I had to login to each of them on the […] Continue Reading…

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The Human Face of Business Blogging

Posted by admin on October 26th, 2009

Before I start this post I should make a bit of a disclaimer. I’m not your average business owner - I’m co-founder of a startup property website with a non-existent budget but lots of in-house talent. I also have a day job, working for a fantastic SEO company. Everything I know about blogging you can be sure I recommend to paying clients as well as implementing on my own sites. Business blogging has changed, […] Continue Reading…

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The Value Of A Blog Series

Posted by Sharon Hurley Hall on October 12th, 2009

    Image by Cedric’s Pics
Want to add value to your blog? An easy way to do this is by creating a series of posts. It doesn’t much matter what the series is about, provided that it is related to your main theme and is something people will want to follow. There are several benefits to creating a series on your blog.

Why Create A Series?

First, creating a series enables you to link several posts together, […] Continue Reading…

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